Arts >> Music >> Digital Music

How to Make a Wubs Bass Drop

The distinctive "wub-wub-wub" sound of the wobble bass drop features on many dubstep tracks. The essential element of a wobble bass drop is a low frequency oscillator-controlled filter. The LFO opens and closes the filter in time with the music, creating the wobble. To make your own wobble bass drop, use a subtractive synthesizer like Synth1 or Albino. You can also create the "wub-wub-wub" effect on any existing bass sound by synchronizing a bandpass filter with the song's tempo in Ableton Live.

Instructions

    • 1

      Download and install the free Synth1 VST synthesizer plug-in. Open Synth1 in your digital audio workstation. Click the saw wave icon next to Oscillator 1; click the square wave icon next to Oscillator 2. Turn the "Pitch" knob in the Oscillator 2 section to "-12." Turn the "Sub" knob about halfway up and click on the sine wave icon next to it. Turn "Tempo Delay" off in the "Effects" section. Turn the "S" knob in the "Amplifier" section to about 75 percent. Click the "DST" button next to LFO 1 until the light next to "Filter" illuminates. Turn the LFO's "Amt" control all the way up. Click the LFO's "Tempo" button, then set the speed of the wobble using the "Spd" knob. Adjust the "Frq" knob in the "Filter" section to remove all but the lowest frequencies from the bass.

    • 2

      Make a wobble bass using Linplug's Albino soft synth. Open the initial patch, then set the first oscillator on the synthesizer to a saw wave. Turn the oscillator's pitch down by one octave. Set the oscillator's "cent" control to approximately "-6." Set the second oscillator to a square wave. Pitch this oscillator down by two octaves. Turn the "Cutoff" knob on the synthesizer's filter to about 400 hertz. Set the synthesizer's LFO to modulate the filter's cutoff. Change the LFO waveform to a saw wave, then set the synchronization to "1/4T." Play the synth and adjust the controls as needed.

    • 3

      Use the built-in filter in Ableton Live to turn any bass sound into a wobble bass. Drag and drop the filter from the "Live Devices" section onto the bass channel. Click the "Bandpass" button and set the filter's cutoff frequency to about 250 hertz. Set the "Amount" control in the "LFO / S&H" section to the maximum; set the "Phase" control to zero. Set the LFO's shape to a sine wave. Click the music note icon next to "Rate." Play the bassline; click and drag the "Rate" control to change the speed of the wobble bass.

Digital Music

Related Categories